220 OF THE OPEN SKY. far away? By no means. Look at the clouds and watch the delicate sculpture of their alabaster sides, and the rounded 'lustre of their magnificent rolling. They are meant to be beheld far away they were shaped for their place high above your head: approach them and they fuse into vague mists, or whirl away in fierce fragments of thunderous vapour. Look at the crest of the Alp from the far away plains over which its light is cast, whence human souls have communed with it by their myriads. It was built for its place in the far off sky approach it, and as the sound of the voice of man dies away about its foundations, and the tide of human life is met at last by the Eternal "Here shall thy waves be staid," the glory of its aspect fades into blanched fearfulness: its purple walls are rent into grisly rocks, its silver fret-work saddened into wasting snow: the stormbrands. of ages are on its breast, the ashes of its own ruin lie solemnly on its white raiment. If you desire to perceive the great harmonies of the form of a rocky mountain, you must not ascend upon its sides. All there is disorder and accident, or seems so. Retire from it, and as your eye commands it more and more, you see the ruined mountain world with a wider glance; behold! dim sympathies begin to busy themselves in the disjointed mass: line binds itself into stealthy fellowship with line: group by group the helpless fragments gather themselves into ordered companies new captains of hosts, and masses of battalions become visible one by one; and, far away answers of foot to foot and of bone to bone, until the powerless is seen risen up with girded loins, and not one piece of all the unregarded heap can now be spared from the mystic whole. STONES OF VENICE. POLITENESS is said to be nothing: so is an air-cushion: but it wonderfully softens the jolts of life. The Christian Courists. No aimless wanderers, by the fiend Unrest No schoolmen, turning, in their classic quest, Simple of faith, and bearing in their hearts Isles of old song, the Moslem's ancient marts, Where the long shadows of the fir and pine And the deep heart of many a Norland mine Where, in barbaric grandeur, Moskwa stands, With Europe's arts and Asia's jewelled hands, Where still, through vales of Grecian fable, stray And Beauty smiles, new risen from the spray, Lifts her tall minarets over burial-grounds Black with the cypress tree! The reader of the Biography of the late Wm. Allen, the philanthropic associate of Clarkson and Romilly, cannot fail to admire his simple and beautiful record of a tour through Europe, in the years 1818 and 1819, in the company of his American friend Stephen Grellett. 222 THE CHRISTIAN TOURISTS. From Malta's temples to the gates of Rome, Following the track of Paul, And where the Alps gird round the Switzer's home They paused not by the ruins of old time, They scanned no pictures rare, Nor lingered where the snow-locked mountains climb But unto prisons, where men lay in chains, To kings and courts forgetful of the pains Scattering sweet words, and quiet deeds of good, Their single aim the purpose to fulfil They held their pilgrim way, Yet dream not, hence the beautiful and old Were wasted on their sight, Who in the school of Christ had learned to hold Not less to them the breath of vineyards blown Not less for them the Alps in sunset shone, A life of beauty lends to all it sees The beauty of its thought; And fairest forms and sweetest harmonies Make glad its way, unsought. READING NOT KNOWLEDGE. In sweet accordancy of praise and love, And sunset mountains wear in light above Sure stands the promise-ever to the meek Nor lose they Earth, who, single-hearted, seek 223 The righteousness of Heaven! J. G. WHITTIER. Reading not Knowledge. It may be questioned whether the reading of what are called good books may not be carried too far-whether it may not hinder reflection, promote self-ignorance, flatter with the name of a good work, and terminate in mere profession and spiritual pride. All the books in the world will not let us into the knowledge of our hearts, unless we take them there ourselves by meditation. The very innocence of the employment renders a man too careless of what should be going on within. He is like a person who, having a large acquaintance with men of agreeable manners, wide information, and good character, spends all his time among them, without looking to his domestic concerns. And the consequence is likely to be the same-a home in disorder and confusion. Let those companions be the most pious of men, the result will not be otherwise; and let the student's occupation be sacred literature itself, he will not escape the evil effects of too exclusively outward attention, unless he is careful, by frequent meditation, to apply the results of his studies to practical improvement. EVANS'S BIOG. OF THE EARLY CHURCH. Che Quaker of the Olden Vime. AN ARGUMENT FOR FREE PRODUCE. THE Quaker of the olden time !— With that deep insight, which detects And knows how each man's life affects He walked by faith and not by sight, The presence of the wrong or right, He felt that wrong with wrong partakes, That whoso gives the motive, makes And pausing not for doubtful choice He listened to that inward voice Oh, spirit of that early day! So pure and strong and true, |